[OSList] Crossing borders -- Coming to the circle -- Update

Wed Nov 9 14:20:51 PST 2011

What to say My Friend? …You did it all and we are glad to help. Keep on Keep’n on!

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Carol D.kas
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 2:11 PM
To: Tova Averbuch; World wide Open Space Technology email list
Cc: Rabbi Ted Falcon
Subject: Re: [OSList] Crossing borders -- Coming to the circle -- Update

Dear Harrison, Elizabeth, Spark, Christy, Anna and Tova: thanks much for all your warm messages and support. It's a privilege for me to have the opportunity to spread my message to you and all those who care about the future of the peoples here or any people who live under conflict. I truly feel touched by the powerful feedbacks and readiness to start acting and making a difference on the ground.

Open Space has been my guide all these years thanks to Harrison, Tova and Avner who showed me the way it works 10 years ago. I found it to be one of the most powerful and insightful tools I ever used to facilitate meaningful dialogues, to plan activities and to engage in deep work processes among the conflicting groups. I don't write usually to the group to inform them about the OS work here but be sure that OS is very popular now among the many many groups and organizations I work with. In my TEDx talk I spoke briefly about working with these groups but my main focus in was on to show the way how people can move from talking to acting by brining live examples from Israelis and Palestinians I work with. I focused on bringing their experiences of crossing the emotional and physical borders which often humans put to protect themselves from the other. I have brought my personal story of crossing borders and knowing all the "other" who is different..

As you all, practicing OS for the past 10 years have contributed tremendously in my work with conflict groups, towards more understanding and trusting the "other", to move from dialoguing  to the acting even in the most unknown and unfamiliar situations, it helped me to support the activists part in each one of the participants of these groups. There are many examples and stories that I wish to write to you but for now I would like to thank you all for the years of practice, of sharing your wisdom with me and for making a difference. Thank you!

Carol

On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 6:03 AM, Tova Averbuch <tova.averbuch at gmail.com> wrote:

Dearest Christy, a beloved poet of life,

Thank you, Carol and Tova, for sharing your work and what you are learning, and for your beautiful differences which embody such deep likeness…

"a difference that embodies a likeness".

This is one name for “hope” for me.

Thank you so very much for creating beauty by capturing it

And for reminding a tipping Point in my personal life in POP gathering on Whidbey Island 2003

Gratefully 

Tova

בברכה,

טובה

Tova Averbuch         טובה אורבוך

יועצת בכירה לפיתוח ארגוני

tova.averbuch at gmail.com

972-3-5523476

972-52-8305343

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Christy Lee-Engel
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 12:53 AM 

To: World wide Open Space Technology email list

Cc: Rabbi Ted Falcon
Subject: Re: [OSList] Crossing borders -- Coming to the circle -- Update 

I have just watched Tova's and Carol's very moving, very eloquent, spirited talks back to back (that is: side by side? face to face?) and could feel as if I were there in Jaffa. 

I think about the good luck of meeting Tova and Carol and their colleague Avner in 2003, when the three of them came with other colleagues from around the world to participate in the Practice of Peace here, to share powerful, difficult, stories about opening space in areas of conflict. 

Compared to then, the work is still very challenging, with no guarantee of anything, but now it seems like the long and devoted effort of opening the space in very hard, rocky, closed-up places has contributed to liberating a lot of fertility and creativity and aliveness (1000 tables of conversation in Tel Aviv and all over Israel! Israelis and Palestinians visiting each others' homes, let alone their towns!)

And I am struck by the fact that Tova and Carol are both so eloquent and poetic in English, which is not either of their first languages - their fluency is an embodied aspect of the theme of this TEDxJaffa, "Desire To Know the Other" - the willingness to do the work necessary to speak the language of another embodies the desire to know the other. Last week, Seattle Arts and Lectures presented an evening with three translators of poetry. One of them, Peter Cole, is an American who translates Arabic and Hebrew poetry into English, and he said that a good translation of a poem, which can seem impossible, is "a difference that embodies a likeness".

Thank you, Carol and Tova, for sharing your work and what you are learning, and for your beautiful differences which embody such deep likeness, openness, willingness, and love.

Christy

Christy Lee-Engel, ND, LAc
Please visit my new private practice location, Core Chiropractic and Wellness <http://corechiropracticseattle.com/> 

Director, Bastyr University Center for Spirituality, Science, and Medicine <http://cssm.bastyr.edu/> 

My cache of inspirations and reflections <http://lifecultivatinglife.posterous.com/> 

206.399.0868

Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 5:20 AM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:

Turns out I was right – Carol was speaking at the same conference with Tova. It also turns out, Tova tells me, that Carol had been asked to organize the conference and invited Tova. Wheels within wheels – or something. If you haven’t listened to Carol’s talk, I urge you to do so. There is absolutely no mention of Open Space Technology – but her language is familiar, and straight from the Open Space experience that I know she has had. For me this is wonderful – and if nothing else – a demonstration of the 5th Principle at work. “Wherever it happens is the right place.” Over the last 10 years Carol has been opening space all over the Middle East, sometimes in the form that we would all recognize as OST, and doubtless more times where that is not the case, but space was opened for different and differing people. They were invited to come to the circle if they cared to come -- no questions asked. Those aren’t quite Carol’s words, but close and I love them.

Many years ago, somebody asked me what my vision for OST might be. I said I hoped it might just disappear as a special thing because it had become such a part of our lives that it needed no special name. It was just what we did. 

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> 

www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com/>  (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Harrison Owen
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 3:38 PM
To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list'
Subject: [OSList] Crossing borders -- Coming to the circle

Carol Kasbari is a Palestinian, an old friend and “Open Spacer.” I first met her in Israel while doing a program with Tova. Carol was very young and afraid. The 2nd Infatada had broken out and a suicide bombing had just occurred in the city and as we did our program at a mountain retreat overlooking the road to Jerusalem. We could see the ambulances moving along. Suddenly Carol’s phone rang. It was her husband, Osama, and he was right in the middle of things. You could feel Carol’s terror. Our program went on. Mostly Open Space. At the end Carol came to me with the most elegant thank you I think I have ever received. She said, “You have reborned my hope.” Since that time, Carol has been doing many things including opening space for many people. Her TED talk (at the same conference Tova spoke to, I think) is powerful, to say the least. Once again she brought tears to my eyes (seems to happen a lot) – and it is clear that her hope is alive and well. Listen for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWiZMXEK_E8 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWiZMXEK_E8&feature=youtu.be> &feature=youtu.be 

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> 

www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com/>  (Personal Website)

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